I promised

The Old Courtesan
(La Belle qui
fut heaulmière)
Auguste Rodin.
I promised I would never
choose flat shoes or
elastic-waisted trousers or
anything made in Crimplene.
I would never
be interested in talking for hours
about ailments and surgery
want to stay home
and not go out at night.
I promised I would never smile
about ancient tv shows,
music from the sixties and seventies
The L-shaped Room, A Kind of Loving,
how things were, without remembering
how far too many things weren’t.
I’d never
wish to be a child again,
or a teenager, or at school.
I'd never
live to be too old.
I think I still know, and don’t know
how there’s layers
and layers of time.
Silt and sky,
land and water,
rivers, clouds.
The same sun,
shining.